hi Greg,
i really appreciate this detailed reply - this is a huge
help to my decision-making process.
historically, we've done ASP.NET/C# work, with some Flash
MX development (Flash control in HTML). i recently hired
a new user experience guy who is very strong in Flash dev, but doesn't yet have
experience in Flex or AS3.
we've been discussing the pros/cons of Flex/Flash, and
that's where the original question to the list originated.
we're on a short timeline, but we have a high bar to meet
in terms of functionality and look/feel.
i totally get the benefits of Flex as a quicker way to get
the shell of the application built, but i'm concerned about that last 10% where
we'll visually differentiate ourselves from every other Flex app
out there.
visually, we're in the ballpark of Vongo (www.vongo.com) or JumpCut (www.jumpcut.com) video and media management
applications. search/browse interface, thumbnails, in-place video
previews, etc., but we're looking to raise the bar in terms of cinematic
animations - smoothly animated filmstrips, drag/drop of thumbnails into the
filmstrip, video clip editing. our back-end is .NET web services
that expose a REST interface.
i'm OK running on the bleeding-edge a bit with AS3, since
we can still target Flash 9 player now. we're at the start of a new
product suite, so moving forward i wouldn't want to be stuck with legacy
limitations of AS2. i'd rather eat that risk at the start of the
product cycle.
it sounds like, if we use AS3 for scripted animations, we
can integrate that cleanly with the Flex 2/AS3 application
shell.
myself and my UE guy are planning to be at MAX this
month - so i think that'll be a great way to get face time with Macromedia folks
and dive deeper into these questions.
thanks,
Kirk
Kirk,
I am going to reply in this one email to your two
earlier posts.
You started off your first post with
"we're looking to
move our ASP.NET based application
suite to Flash". So I assume that your team has no deep competency
with either Flex or Flash. Is this correct?
For developing RIAs, I
suggest you make Flex 2 your default choice with a side investigation of how to use Flash 9 (or for now Flash 8 Pro with the Flash
Pro 9 ActionScript 3.0 Preview).
There are a number of points of comparison between Flex
and Flash. When developing RIAs one that is very relevant is the choice
between using the prebuilt component framework in Flex 2 vs building your own
components in Flash 8 or 9.
Also, the whole development process is very
different. Will you be having your ASP.NET developers cross training? If so Flex 2 likely
will prove to be more familiar and easier for them to come up to speed on
quickly. Flash authoring, on the other hand, uses paradigms that likely
are unfamiliar to more traditional developers such as is taught in university
computer science programs. For a quick sense of how Flash development may
look to traditional coders, in this following
article see the section under the heading: "We Call This 'The Timeline.'
No, Wait, Come Back!" www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flash_perspective.html
Regarding "video-heavy applications" I see
no inherent advantage of Flash over Flex (or vice versa).
One potential
disadvantage of Flex 2 is that it is ActionScript 3 only. But this is only
a disadvantage if you have existing Flash ActionScript 2 components, because as
Robert hinted in his post at run time AS3 and AS2 components are limited in
their ability to talk to each other. Aside from that, however, the
advantages of AS3 over AS2 are enormous.
Regarding the specific issue you
stated that "we couldn't mix Flex running AS3 with scripted movies with AS2",
that is only partly true. As of Flash Player 9 (FP9),
there are two Actionscript Virtual Machines (AVM). AS3 pcode runs in FP9's new AVM2, and the
pcode from AS2 and earlier run in AVM1. At runtime, code can be running in
both AVM1 and AVM2 at the same time, but they can not pass values directly
between the AVMs. Though they can pass values through external APIs (in
his post Robert mentioned localconnection). So, though you CAN
"mix Flex running AS3 with scripted movies with AS2", there
are limitations. Thus this is one case where shops with legacy AVM1 code may have an incentive to convert
their legacy code to AS3. For a great walkthrough of what is new with FP9,
AS3 and the AVM2 check out this presentation by Gary Grossman, lead developer on
the Flash Player team and an Adobe Senior Scientist. http://seminars.breezecentral.com/p64058844/
On
another issue, your posts are the first I have heard anyone raising concerns
about "one of the issues brought up to me was how to get the nice cinematic feel
w/ scripted animations, etc. in Flex." Whether you author in Flash or Flex
it all compiles down to the same pcode. It really is just dependent on the
skills of your developers. Furthermore, as Nick said in his reply, "You
should use both." And "it's not an either/or situation." I actually
would love it if you could have your source on this concern post back on this
thread with more details. The broad community of "Flash Platform"
developers continue to grapple with how get the most out of the vast and amazing
tools that Adobe has given us :-)
Should you
want to solicit comments that may favor Flash more over Flex, you might also
want to put your post up over on the Flashcoders list: http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Should you want to solicit
comments from Flash/Flex video specialists, you might also want to put your post
up over on the FlashMedia list: http://www.flashcomguru.com/flashmedialist/
And by the way, can you spare 3 days later this month?
If so you really should come to MAX! It will be the ideal forum for you to
hammer out a definitive plan of action. The Flex 2 team will be there in
force. The Flash team will be there in force. And a large part of
the community developing in both will be there too.
Just to give you a
flavor, here are 4 sessions that seem pretty on point to your
requirement:
Regardless what you decide,
please do post back to this list and let us know what you decided (and maybe
even why :-)
hth,
g
On 10/4/06, Kirk
Marple <kirk-public@agnostic-media.com>
wrote:
interesting... one of the issues brought up to me was how to
get the nice cinematic feel w/ scripted animations, etc. in
Flex.
i was
told that only simple looping animations were possible because we couldn't mix
Flex running AS3 with scripted movies with AS2.
maybe the
new AS3 preview will solve that, since we could script animations using AS3 in
regular Flash 8 Professional.
am i
totally off-base here in what i've been told?
thanks,
Kirk
The fact of the matter is that it's not an either/or situation. You should
use both. For the logic and coding you definitely want to be using Flex with
SVN for obvious reasons, and for building the skins of the UI components to
create the "cinematic experience" you want to be using Flash.
On 10/4/06, Renaun
Erickson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]com> wrote:
A big one for me is Developer workflow. Try sharing FLA's between
a couple of developers. Using MXML and AS with CVS/SVN you can get
tons of work done with out working about who has the latest file.
Granted you could do this with Flash 8 professional and external AS files
but that is also messy in its own right.
Renaun
---
In [EMAIL PROTECTED]ups.com , "Kirk Marple"
<kirk-public@...> wrote: > > we're looking to move
our ASP.NET based application
suite to Flash, and have > been investigating the use of Flex 2 vs.
just straight Flash 8 Pro. > > can anyone provide any feedback
on what limitations you've seen when > developing an RIA in Flex 2 vs.
just straight Flash 8? > > we're trying to evaluate the
pros/cons on going one way vs another. > > specifically, we
like the Flex 2 layout capabilities and the ability to > easily deal
with XML and REST web services, but we seem to be constrained by >
the lack of scripted animations (from what i've heard) and ability to
have a > "cinematic" look/feel compared to Flash 8. also, it's
video-heavy > application and need the ability to do dynamic video
assembly and playback. > > thanks for any input! >
Kirk > >
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ >
Kirk Marple > Chief Software Architect, VP of Engineering >
Agnostic Media, Inc. > e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > w: www.agnostic-media.com <
http://www.agnostic-media.com/>
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